Pacta Sunt Servanda
by Ed's Tomato
Summary: ..."Pacts must be kept". Lydia must keep her side of a bargain made many years ago, in order to gain help against a wretchedness sweeping over Winter River. But what all does that entail? And will she live to find out? Wary or not. Here he comes.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Ah with all those unfinished stories sitting there and pleading at me to work on them, I start anew. Because it's Halloween, and because I've never tried my hand at Beej before. I'll take this opportunity to note that I do in no way own any rights to the characters used in the following story, and that they are for amusement and not monetary gain. Let me remind all that I have NOT tried my hand at the Ghost with the Most before, so bear with my mistakes and keep your criticism to the constructive kind, if you please. It's been a while since I've watched the movie even, though it's one of my dear favorites. Also, the rating is low for now but I do plan to up it for later chapters: language, adult situations, etcetera... Anyway. Happy Halloween everybody, and enjoy!**

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**Chapter One:**

I should be wary.

I am. More so than my lips pressed tightly together can signify. More than the hint of sweat beading on my forehead and the extreme pallor that even _I'm_ not quite known for, can possibly denote.

But there's something wrong. Something I can't quite place, a malicious force that's sliding around the sleepy Winter River community, and seeping itself into all aspects of life here.

It's midday. There should be birds in the sky and children playing on the sidewalk. It's a sleepy town, but this is comatose. Women doing shopping in town are rushing along their way, shoulders drawn in protectively, heads bent, not meeting any gazes. And it used to be such a friendly place.

The sun should be shining down on us, the gentle rush of water under the bridge, but instead there is this stillness that seems to muffle and drown everything else out. There are no clouds in the sky, but the sunlight is filtered and grainy. There is no breeze to the air, but curtains shift restlessly. The weather is temperate, but there is no wildlife out.

Something is very wrong.

Not for the first time that month, I miss Barbara and Adam. Miss their insight, their link to things that are more difficult for us still living to understand. Miss the doors they could open that I can't step through alone. But Barbara and Adam are gone, given some afterlife vacation for good behavior, for services rendered. Some type of paradise that they can't return from, but who would want to? I'm happy for them, but it doesn't help me now.

I'm all alone here. The house is mine, my parents safely and blissfully unaware of the darkness reaching toward me as they sit back in the hustle of the city, where life seems more real to them and less to me. Not that they could help, or that they wouldn't try if I were to call. Delia is many things, but she loves me. In her own way.

I wring my hands together and bite my lip hard enough to cause real pain, trying to snap myself out of the fog. Trying to find another solution to this problem. One that won't undo everything that Barbara saved me from. But, as wicked as he was, whatever's out there is worse. The air is so still I know a storm must be coming, and I can feel it in me that I'm running out of time.

It's now or never.

Though I know I should be wary…

"Betelgeuse."

I wait for a hairsbreadth of a second, expecting…what do I expect?…it's been years. He could be anywhere…

"Betelgeuse."

I try to imagine I hear something, feel something coming, waiting. But I'm only imagining it.

"Betelgeuse."

And as sure as I was a moment ago that no one was listening, I am sure now that everything has heard me. There is a scream of anger on the wind. The windows rattle, the glass in them breaking, and everything around me is angry. The _town _is angry, and I have enough sense of myself to cover my head with my arms to ward of the danger that's circling me like a vulture.

Every muscle in me is tensed, waiting for death or pain or whatever this is to consume me, but then there are strong hands on my arms, squeezing to the point of pain, but not harming, and a rushing in my ears as I am pulled away from the evil that was coming for me and taken somewhere else altogether.

"I knew you had potential."

I know it's him before I pull my arms down to see that familiar dark smirk and mischievous glint to his eyes. The disgusting mantle of filth he chooses to wear most days carefully in place. It's him down to the last detail. His presence even instills in me the same feelings it did all those years ago. A strange sort of comfortable foreboding. Because even as I feared him, there was something in him that I trusted. Perhaps I was a fool, and am still, but I'm yet alive.

"Betel-" My exclamation is cut short by his finger over my lips and a raised brow coupled with a head shake.

"Nah ah ah. Let's not say the B word again just yet," He reminds me, and I nod, knowing I must look like a mute at the moment. As much as I tried to mentally prepare myself for his arrival, I seem lost for words. He drops down to a crouch in front of me, elbow resting comfortably on his knee and reaching a hand out to help me up as a lazy second thought.

Once I'm on my feet, I realize I've not so much as looked at where we are, my head turning this way and that in confusion. It's not my house, not anywhere I've ever been before, and what's more it doesn't feel right. An unsettlement in my stomach reminiscent of turning down a road not on any directions.

"Where are we?" My gaze is drawn to the doors around me that I didn't seem to notice before. Or maybe now they were just taking shape.

"Nowhere," He answered with a hint of amusement to his voice, "_In between _if you need a better explanation."

"Why?" I don't question what _In between_ meant. I probably wouldn't like the answer.

"Well I assumed you wanted to stay among the breathin', or did you just invite me out to attend the funeral?" He chuckled as I looked back at him and notice that he's looking at me more intently than he had when I was a child. I had forgotten how time passes for him. It must seem as though I'd grown in the blink of an eye, though I'd hardly expected him to notice. Or maybe I'd just hoped he wouldn't.

"No…I…," Pushing a strand of black hair out of my eyes, I fight the compulsion to fidget., "I need your help."

"_That_, I figured out for myself," He agreed, breathing on his knuckles and then rubbing them against the lapel of his suit as though to shine them, "And I think I can help you. Question is, what's in it for me?"

"I'll marry you." I sounded too quick to agree, too eager in my own ears. But I knew it was all he wanted, and I'd already known I'd give it to him. His eyes narrowed.

"Just like that huh? Was like pullin teeth the last time. There some trick up your sleeve?" He glanced left and right as though expecting Barbara to come riding down on a sandworm over him again any moment, "Or maybe you just missed my company?"

I just shook my head and answered, "No tricks. I'll marry you."

He moved closer to me, "You agreed the last time too, but then I ended up sandworm fodder…"

He was right. It wasn't fair. I'd always known it wasn't. He might be wretched, but he'd kept his end of the bargain. I'd been the one to cheat. To prove I was serious, I lifted the chain from around my neck to expose what dangled beneath my shirt. His ring.

A definitely pleased and mildly sinister smile split his face.

"Ah, now we're talking," He agreed, and with a snap of his fingers our wedding arrangements began anew, startling me once again.

He'd dressed me differently this time, instead of garish red taffeta, he had me in the longest dress I'd ever imagined. It was the dress of a woman, whereas my last wedding gown had been for a child. It reminded me once again that he'd noticed how I'd grown and wished to remind me that he knew it. A dark, blood red with a neckline that plunged to my belly, and a train that stretched out behind me into the shadows. It was every bit as tacky as the last one had been, but the differences were disconcerting. The veil came to my elbows and only partially obscured my vision of the ceremony.

The little brown beetle of a man stood there as before. As though no time had passed, and for a delirious moment I thought perhaps it hadn't. But Betelgeuse turned to me, my elbow clasped tight in his grasp and shot me a rather lewd smile, his crushed velvet suit gone black this time and a malice around the eyes that I hadn't noticed before.

Ghosts can look any way they please once they've had some time to practice it. They can make themselves ghoulish or monstrous or divinely beautiful. Betelgeuse had always preferred to be disgusting. He seemed to delight in the discomfort it brought others, and I'd never known what he might have looked like before he died, but for a moment I had a glimpse. The grin he shot me was positively disarming, his hair not quite so wild for a moment, the mold gone, the dark circles round his eyes paled. But it only lasted the length between blinks and then he was his old self and I became aware he'd just slipped the ring on my finger and that we'd already murmured, "I do".

"It's Showtime."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Well I updated again quickly, just for you, my one reviewer:-) Had to up the rating already because Beej has a mouth on him. I don't own any of this, remember? But I do own the candy corn I'm currently shoveling in my mouth, so there!**

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**Chapter 2: **

I think I stopped breathing, when the veil was pushed back from my face and his mouth came down over mine. There was that flicker for a moment of a younger man, a memory of what he'd been perhaps, and the taste of his lips on mine wasn't so unpleasant as I'd steeled myself for.

The kiss changed something. At first it was just the soft contact of skin on skin, but then I lost all placement of that and I felt such strength that I had never know pulse through me. The headiness of it swept me off my feet and it was only belatedly that I realized, one of his arms was around my waist, keeping me upright. It was as though I saw things differently now. Saw it as possibilities instead of realities, and part of me _knew_ where those doors led, or where they could lead if I wanted them to.

And Betelgeuse was grinning fiendishly. "Always could knock a girl off her feet," He told the minister who looked no more interested in the goings on than he ever had, disappearing with a crack like a nut breaking open.

My hands were resting on his arms, blinking through the sensations to try to find balance. I search his face for a moment, wondering if he knows what binds us. If he is suddenly _aware_ as I am, or perhaps this is what it's like to be a ghost. Perhaps he had this all along. And perhaps there was a fine print I should have read pertaining to marriages between the dead and the living. Will my death truly part us or have I signed away my eternal soul to him? So many things I should have considered, and I'm reminded again of why I didn't have time to consider them.

"We have to go back," I remind him, as I catch my breath, "There's…something. I could feel the storm about to break before…"

"I think you broke it babes," He told me, almost apologetically, "You got their attention when you summoned _me_." He looks proud of the fact, and impressed with his own importance. But what catches my interest is when he said "their". I'd always assumed it was just one malevolent force, but now the realization hits me like fingers climbing up my bare arms.

"Hey!" The fingers abruptly pause, but he whines regardless.

"Just enjoying some of that nuptial bliss," He leered at me, "We did just get hitched, babe, and I've got a little itch, y'know? Been about three thousand years since I had something…living."

I swat his hands away, feeling the shiver of ice down my spine. God, what did I just do?

"I kept my end of the bargain-" I begin, only to get cut off.

"Yeah," He agreed, raising his gaze from where it was fixed on my cleavage to give me a slow evil smirk, "About that. You wanna get technical about it, I held up my end too, seein as y'still owed me from the last time." He snapped his hand up and it was holding a tally that blinked with red lights that read: B-Man 2, Babes 1.

I try to break free of his grip, and stumble back a few steps, tripping over the ridiculous train and listening to him chuckle. I look up and he's in front of me again, arms folded across his chest expectantly.

"Just askin for a little consummation here, babe. Then all your troubles'll be a thing a th'past."

I shoot him a look that's past hate, past anger to utter loathing. My eyes squeeze shut as I feel him approaching, no doubt in my mind he'll take what he thinks he's owed. I concentrate on home, pull at that new shared power of his, demand upon it…

I hear his howl of rage as an echo and find the power to open my eyes again. I'm here. Home. And the stillness has returned, but I can feel that it's a false stillness. That there is something very close, waiting for me to make a move. A crack and Betelgeuse is there with me again, looking pretty ticked off.

"How in the fuck did you do that?" He demands. Seems he didn't know. Maybe there was some fine print he missed reading as well. I shake my head and straighten up, and my ridiculous wedding gown is gone, replaced by everyday clothes again, and I can see him seething, steam coming out of his ears. "My POWERS," He snarled out, eyes alight with fury, "You're using _MY _POWERS."

"You were the one so anxious to get married," I remind him, feeling a little amused despite myself. Feeling as though we were on equal playing grounds for the first time. "What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine." I'm not a hundred percent sure that's how it works, but it makes sense and it seemed to rile him up even more.

He opens his mouth to respond in some nasty retort when the kitchen door bursts open and the coldest wind I've ever felt is barraging my skin with needles. I didn't expect him to step in on my behalf, but perhaps he's just protecting his interests as he moves between the onslaught and myself, arms reaching around me and snarling in my ear. "Push back at it, you stupid cow."

I wonder if he is weaker for my use of his powers.

I concentrate. Try to blot out the whole world. Try to blot out the tremble of his corporeal form as he holds me and is straining himself. All of this is new to me. This feeling of being able to protect myself with a strain of thought, with the force of my own will. The fleeting thought that what we are doing now is magic. That maybe all my time spent in school would have been put to better use if I had been seriously studying the occult. What would the kids at school have said to know that I was a real witch now?

The freezing wind is only the symptom. The problem is the thing standing just inside the door. I cannot see it, but I know it's there. I can hear it as it slides over the tile, a wet slopping sound, to move closer to us and Betelgeuse tightens his grip on me.

"GET _RID_ OF IT." I know he's throwing everything he has and he needs me to do the same.

I hear my own sob echo across the vastness of the kitchen floor as I bury in tighter to my ghostly husband and I draw on his strength to save us. Another wet slop closer and I scream and push, push _push_ with everything that I have and it's a white-hot glow between us and the thing, and it squeals. Possibly the most horrible sound I've ever borne witness too. So much worse than the cry of a stuck pig. And the slopping is burning, I can hear it sizzle, and the door falls shut in it's wake, the simple clatter that seems out of place in the silence that follows the draw of power.

It's Betelgeuse that I'm looking for comfort with now, and the idea of that is just ludicrous. My face buried against his chest, hands clamped tight on the lapels of his jacket until my knuckles are white. My shoulders shake with terrified sobs, and I have never been so afraid, because I know without any shadow of doubt that, that _thing_, would have eaten me. Would have licked up every last drop of me and that even in afterlife I would never have escaped it.

He's uncharacteristically quiet and I find it unnerving, casting a shy glance up at his face as I slowly start to release my grip. He looks...angry.

"This is just fucking terrific," He starts to pace when I've let him go, my hand on the counter for support now and feeling faint at the expenditure.

When I don't answer him, he casts me a dark gaze, fingers twitching in a fashion that leads me to believe he's considering putting them around my neck. Marriage isn't everything it's cracked up to be. Still, he keeps his distance, for which I am very grateful. Pondering in a serious manner to which I can tell he has supreme distaste for. Violence is all fine and good when it isn't inconveniencing him. And as tempted, as he might be to end my life, he doesn't know that it will fix his predicament. And even if it did, he'd be back under the force of the curse, and returned to where he'd started. No, he needed me. It would keep me safe from his wrath for the moment.

"What was that?" I finally choke out, surprised at the rasp of my own voice.

"An Amalgam. You've got some real serious shit going on here babe, and it's not a great time for me to be going halfsies with you on my powers." He snapped as though it was my doing that created this mess. As though I could give them back.

He fidgets with the ring on his left hand that I hadn't noticed before. It matches mine in shape and color, and I must assume he had it on him before our ceremony. Maybe not. Who knew how this magic worked or how deeply we were bonded. I could see him thinking about it. He wanted my physical affections, that much was clear, but he was weighing his options. How much trouble I was turning out to be.

He reached down to adjust himself as he looked me over, licking his lips with a long serpentine tongue. "I'd love to hang out and see how virginal the little woman is, but there's only so much trouble I go to for pussy, and you're pushing it babe."

My face screws up in disgust that I have no desire to hide from him. He probably likes it, gets off on it, and I have no want to give him that, but he is just such a cretinous….

"Fine." I agree, I should be able to handle this on my own now, with his powers at my command. At least I hope. "Have a nice afterlife."

"Oh no no no," He argues, "You're going to go and get yourself killed and then I'll have had to tolerate all this for NOTHING." He sneered. "Nah ah, Babes…that won't work for me." He mused for a moment as though trying to come up with a better plan and then snapped his fingers with a grin. A grin that is very rapidly towering over me. I let out a squeak of surprise, looking all around, but he's had much more practice at this than I have and I don't know exactly how to undo what he's done.

His mammoth fingers descend on me and I'm lifted up to eye level, and I must say that up close and magnified his visage is only all the more horrible. Flecks of bugs between his teeth, and the rotting flesh at the edges of his face, half covered in mold and enlarged enough for me to make out every pore.

"Now, this is how I like my little women," He told me with a cackle and suddenly I'm thrust into the damp smelly front pocket of his shirt and all I can do is hang on for the ride and try not to be sick.


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